While FB is a bit on hiatus, I did get a chance to guest blog on Chasing Education. Check it out an also check out the host blog, a must-read for lifelong learners!
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Gallery Hopping at 2AM
November 17, 2009 – 1:24 pm
As a freelance designer/filmmaker just starting out, I’ve been researching a lot of online portfolios to study best practices for creating my own portfolio site. Along the way, I’ve discovered that many of the portfolios for artists, photographers, and illustrators are incredibly beautiful on their own. While most of these artists create these sites to show off their work for commercial reasons, visiting their sites has the same appeal to me as gallery-hopping despite not having the intention to buy.
Like a gallery, each of these sites is crafted to sell the work or gained future commissioned work. That means that like a gallery, each site tries its best to create a beautiful environment for the work it is promoting. The result can be an amazing introduction to an artist that might have escaped your radar, or better yet access to some excellent art even if you aren’t living in a major city.
A great place to get started on your search is Smashing Magazine, an online designer’s magazine that regularly showcases portfolio websites. The post 35 Beautiful Photography Websites is a good collection to start with, but warning: you may find yourself browsing a little too long!
Making Music Social: A Look at TheSixtyOne.com
November 15, 2009 – 10:00 am
TheSixtyOne.com does something innovative with some very old ideas.
The buzzword of Generation Y is “social,” and it’s not referring to quaint get-togethers involving ice cream sundaes. Music in particular has a rich history of being a very social art form, from its beginnings in public performance to the recent decades’ obsession with mix tapes. Translating this to the social networking paradigm that has emerged with “Web 2.0″ has become a chief concern to the music industry.
Enter TheSixtyOne.com, which harnesses the power of social networking while incorporating the more primal human need for shared artistic experience and critique. TheSixtyOne allows its artists to set up sites that provide free streaming music for an audience of listeners competing to prove their taste. Listeners vote for their favorite artists, and if a listener’s choice jumps in popularity the listener is rewarded with more points and a level boost. The way Digg users strive to become tastemakers in the community surrounding that site, TheSixtyOne listeners embark in a friendly competition to prove their credibility as music listeners. Read More
Public Art on the Internet
November 14, 2009 – 7:46 pm
After spending the past four years in New York City (something I mention with annoying frequency), I have become very aware of “public art.” Artwork made for public display outside of the context of a private museum or gallery can come in many forms. There are the city-commissioned installations in almost every subway system in the U.S. or the intricate found-glass mosaics one man decided to put on many of the sign posts in Manhattan. In any of the cases, what makes public art public is that it is placed in a space where random passerby’s can see it without actively seeing it. They don’t have to purchase $20 MoMA tickets, they just have to cross the street on their way to work.
This raised the question: can public art exist on the internet? If we look at the world of digital art, is it impossible to capture the randomness of audience that is captured by the sculpture at the intersection that everyone must drive past? In this post, I’m taking a look at three examples of online art that I think attempt this sort of spontaneity of viewership that occurs in tradition public art.
